La Sportiva Tarantulace - Women's Review

With high scores in comfort and edging and an affordable price tag, the La Sportiva Tarantulace represents an incredible value and is one of our top recommendations for any intro-level rock climber. The asymmetric shape and roomy toe box, combined with a full lace-up closure, make for a friendly fit for most feet.

Performance Comparison

Comfort

Though they are barely downturned to the naked eye, the Tarantulace provides just enough shape to hold up the arch of the foot and cradle the heel. The shoes are highly adjustable, with a soft leather tongue (with a synthetic lining) and wide laces that don't cut into the top of the foot when tightening the shoes down. The heel comes up high enough to feel secure in the back, and we never felt like our foot was about to come out of these shoes, unlike some other beginner-style shoes. The best part about these shoes in terms of comfort is the soft leather uppers. Our feet enjoyed these shoes because the inside was so soft and forgiving.

The Tarantulace touts La Sportiva's quick-pull lacing system that allows you to find a snug, highly adjustable fit with ease. The speed lace design allows you to get the shoes on quickly without fiddling with each individual lace. When pulled tight, the shoe uniformly tightens and conforms well to the shape of your foot. There is also no need to fiddle with each lace toward the toe of the shoe – the speed lace design allows you to pull the laces tight from the top.

It should be noted that because these shoes are unlined, they will stretch out over time. This means that you may need to size down a half size to ensure a decent fit in the long term. If sized properly, the Tarantulace will work well for anything from long multi-pitch climbs to after-work gym sessions. If sized super tight, these shoes will fit like a glove and may even be appropriate for harder climbing and bouldering.

Smearing

For the most part, we tested the Tarantulace in the climbing gym and out in the boulders. Slippery volumes and tiny, polished granite crystals in the Buttermilks were the perfect test ground to assess this shoe's smearing capabilities. Compared to the more performance-oriented models in this review, the Tarantulace obviously falls a bit short. Still, considering they are beginner shoes designed with comfort in mind, their smearing is adequate for most introductory climbers.

The shape of the toe box is subtly tapered to provide a precise surface for smearing and edging. Though be warned, the Frixion RS rubber takes some time to break in, and we found these shoes to be fairly slippery on smears at first. Glassy footholds in the Buttermilks or the boulders of Yosemite Valley were too polished for the rubber to engage with. When we switched to other, more technical shoes, we could stand on these terrible holds.

Edging

As mentioned above, the Tarantulace has a very subtle downturn that allows room for a beginner climber to progress toward more technical climbing throughout the life of the shoe. The downturned shape and fairly still sole make the Tarantulace perform average in terms of an edging shoe. We found them to excel more at vertical and less-than-vertical technical edging than lower-angle slabby smearing.

Though the toe box is not tapered nor very aggressively precise, the Tarantulace still holds its own on small edges. If anything, learning to climb in these shoes will help you focus on precision and proper weighting of the feet, which will inevitably make you a better climber in the long run.

Pulling

If you've heard the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none," you will understand why it applies to the Tarantulace. These are great all-around shoes, with their fairly flat sole, stiff midsole, and extremely subtle downturn. The toe box is roomy enough to offer a comfortable fit and keep a newer climber excited about climbing. But this also means the toe box is not necessarily designed for precision while pulling on footholds.

Depending on the style of climbing, the Tarantulace will work just fine. However, don't expect it to excel on steep, technical pocket climbing or bouldering, where precise pulling onto footholds is necessary. It will work well on vertical terrain but might start to fall short once the terrain gets more technical.

Crack Climbing

Their relatively flat shape, stiff sole, laces, and leather uppers make the Tarantulace a totally acceptable crack climbing shoe. If fitted properly, the toe box should be roomy enough not to crush your toes, which helps a lot when jamming one's feet into thin hand cracks.

If you plan to spend a month in Indian Creek honing your crack climbing skills, the leather uppers and laces may see some significant wear and tear. But, if longer, moderate multi-pitch trad climbs are what you seek, then the Tarantulace will work just fine. The stiffness underfoot will provide a stable base for low-angle jamming, and their arch support will be more comfortable on long days. With more aggressive shoes, long multi-pitches can start to feel like a living nightmare where one must rip their shoes off at each belay as quickly as possible to alleviate pain. But while wearing the Tarantulace, we never once thought of bailing because of foot pain.

Should You Buy the Tarantulace?

The La Sportiva Tarantulace is one of the most affordable climbing shoes on the market. Though they are simple in design and features and do not have the stickiest rubber compound out there, these shoes are a great value, especially for beginner climbers. They're a gym shoe, multi-pitch trad shoe, and a comfortable all-day shoe for sport climbing and cragging. A slight downturn, a moderately stiff midsole, and an easy-to-use lacing system combine to make for a solid all-arounder. We were impressed by the Tarantulace's edging abilities, though we were a bit disappointed by its smearing abilities. After some time breaking in the stiff rubber soles, the shoes began to feel more comfortable on all different types of rock and climbing styles.

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